Schubert's 'Winterreise', Reinterpreted by a Woman in a Novel Reading
/By Raymond Beegle
1/12/2020
Photo credit: Rachel Papo, The New York Times
The first performance of Winterreise was a very simple affair: A few of Schubert’s friends gathered around a piano to hear him play and sing the yet unfinished cycle just weeks before his death. “Simple,” in the sense of “unadorned,” or “without artifice,” is a key element of Schubert’s works, and strikes at the heart of his genius.
192 years later, at Carnegie Hall on December 15, 2019, two current celebrities sang and played the same notes, but it was not a simple affair. Of course, complications are sometimes unavoidable. For example, an English-speaking audience necessitated the large metal and glass apparatus suspended above the stage flashing translations of Wilhelm Müller’s text. Avoidable, however, was the surplus of reading that took place this afternoon. As the public gazed at the suspended screen, the singer’s eyes were fixed steadfastly on a copy of the vocal score. Under such conditions there was little hope that the mysterious union between poet, composer, performer and listener would take place.
Another complication appeared, drawing attention away from the music. The first words flashed on the screen were not the words of Wilhelm Müller. Some unidentified author had penned “His journal arrived today.” While the first notes of the cycle were sounded, the mind was distracted in wondering about the “journal.” Who sent it? Was it a notebook in which poems appeared, or were these rhyming stanzas supposed to represent the journal itself?
Then there was the realization that mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato was not playing the role of the protagonist, but representing an entirely new character. Yet another complication: Who is this new character, this lady in an elegant Biedermeier dress? She is in mourning, one gathered, as she wears black and sits by a little table covered in black pall. She seems to be a person of standing considering her magnificent attire. But is she the mother of the young journeyman? His sister? No, he was of humble stock. Is she the woman who rejected him? No, she is clearly no young maid. In the meantime, “Gute Nacht” had come and gone, and one observed the lady, now sitting, now standing, reading the newly arrived journal; but how many times had she read it? During the well-known “Der Lindenbaum”, she pressed the book to her breast and sang as if the lines had been read more than once. At other times, when, as in “Rückblick”, syllables and notes came flying at a furious pace, her eyes were riveted to the page.
The idea of an additional character, a person in mourning for Müller’s protagonist, reading his poems as from a journal, is an ingenious one, giving the text a fresh new tone, and making it reasonable that a woman rather than a man is singing the lines. But could this novel idea possibly be an elaborate means of disguising the fact that the artist had not done her homework sufficiently, did not know her assignment well enough to recite it by heart? Notwithstanding all the artistry possessed by DiDonato, her graceful phrasing, her intelligence and dramatic skill, there was an impression that she was sometimes close to sight-reading, that her lessons were only half learned, that her voice had not yet settled comfortably into the contours of the musical line, and that the emotions she professed were slightly postured.
As well, the pianist Yannick Nézet Séguin, notwithstanding his formidable musical mind and disciplined fingers, seemed not to have practiced the various technical passages sufficiently: The leaves of the old Lindenbaum rustled with the greatest circumspection, the triplets in “Der stürmische Morgen” were murky, the solo passages in “Mut” were insufficiently articulated.
Still, this was no thoughtless performance. It is no easy task to provide a compelling dramatic shape for this relentless hour-long litany of despair and dashed hopes, but intelligent and intuitive solutions had been found. For example, the three pieces just before “Der Leiermann” were sung as a single unit, without pause, giving the cycle a slight thrust forward at just the right moment. The long silence which followed gave the 24th and final song remarkable emotional power. It is, after all, an epilogue, a resolution. Music appears. The great comforter.
Considering the talent of this evening’s artists, even a first reading would reveal some of the majesty in this work. However, one would wish that the bread had not been taken out of the oven prematurely by these two very busy bakers. They are among the finest we have, but Schubert, the great Schubert, demands more respect, and more complete preparation.
At the close the public responded in its usual way. Celebrities are on stage. One must rise to one’s feet and cheer deliriously.
Raymond Beegle reviews classical music and opera for the New York Observer and Fanfare Magazine. For many years he was Contributing Editor of Opera Quarterly, the Classic Record Collector (UK), and also appeared on The Today Show (NBC) and Good Morning America (CBS). As an accompanist, he has collaborated with Zinka Milanov and Licia Albanese. Currently Mr. Beegle serves on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music in New York City.